Responsibilities of School Boards
The IASB Board Learning Standards

Clear learning standards help to focus instruction for students. Because the same holds true for adult learning, IASB has developed learning standards for school boards, adopted in September 2005 by the IASB Board of Directors. The IASB Board Learning Standards define the responsibilities of school boards today through broad statements of what effective school board members and school boards must know and be able to do. 

These standards form a learning agenda for new and experienced board members alike, according to Mary Jane Vens, director of board development for IASB. They will also form the framework for training and other services provided by IASB, Vens said.

Foundational Governance Responsibilities

Six areas cover the “basics of boardsmanship” that form the foundation for effective board work.

1. Complying with state and federal law and board policy:  Includes understanding the board’s legal responsibilities, appropriately using legal counsel, and developing and following board policy.
2. Acting with fiscal responsibility:  Includes understanding school finance concepts, adopting a fiscally responsible budget, monitoring the fiscal health of the district, and working with appropriate staff to ensure operation of a fiscally responsible system.
3. Establishing a human resource system that enables all people to contribute meaningfully:  Includes approving, supporting and assessing a human resource system that operates within the structures of law, policy and best practice; meeting the board’s roles in collective bargaining, hiring and termination, and understanding and following the chain of command.
4. Ensuring safe and equitable access to learning: Covers a variety of board responsibilities related to ensuring students have appropriate facilities, a safe environment, transportation, materials and time for learning.
5. Building effective legislative and community relationships: Includes communicating with patrons, handling citizen concerns, working with the media, and relating to legislators.
6. Operating effectively as a board team: Covers basic rules of meeting conduct and efficiency, understanding the roles of board president and others, and a basic understanding of team development.

Leadership for Improved Student Learning

The “leadership for learning” standards are based on the Lighthouse research studies conducted by IASB’s research arm, the Iowa School Boards Foundation, along with other research on leadership and effective schools. “The Lighthouse studies show that boards in high-achieving districts are very different from boards in low-achieving districts,” said Lisa Bartusek, IASB leadership development director. “There’s some pretty clear evidence that if we want great gains in student learning, school boards must master their role as strong leaders for school improvement.”

These standards call for boards to learn and apply skills in:

1. Building clarity and commitment for high expectations in student learning: Includes the board’s role in developing mission, vision and beliefs; setting student learning expectations and improvement goals; communicating the moral imperative of improvement; and celebrating success and progress in improvement.
2. Ensuring adequate supports and resources to improve student learning: Covers prioritizing funding and human resources around student learning goals; ensuring that staff have the training and tools to be successful in improvement initiatives; and engaging legislators and the community to ensure adequate supports and commitment for improvement.
3. Holding the system accountable, not accepting less than high achievement for all students: Includes identifying indicators the board will accept as evidence of progress or success in improvement initiatives; monitoring the implementation, impact and cost of improvement initiatives; ensuring public accountability; and holding the superintendent accountable for improvement in student learning.
4. Embedding capacity for change in policy, planning and practice: Covers aligning policy, planning and practice to support instructional improvement; developing leadership throughout the school and community; and maintaining the focus on improvement over time, dealing with barriers as they arise.
5. Nurturing the board/superintendent team as leaders for improved learning: Includes committing board learning and agenda time to understanding school improvement; regularly evaluating the board around fulfilling its leadership and governance roles; and developing an interdependent leadership between the board and superintendent.
6. Understanding the instructional improvement core of district work that ensures student learning: While boards don’t do this work, they must understand the work of the superintendent and staff in instructional improvement. The board can’t perform its other roles of setting goals, providing supports or accountability without an understanding how effective schools operate. This “instructional core” work of staff includes distributed leadership; curriculum, instruction and assessment; instructional strategies; professional development; tracking implementation and results for students; and other work.

For more information, contact Mary Jane Vens, IASB board development director, at mvens@ia-sb.org or 1-800-795-4272.